Burning Stars
by ohstarswald
Summary: Annabelle Pond's life is turned completely upside down the day the Doctor discovers the daughter he never knew existed.
1. Chapter 1

The first book that caught her eye was plucked straight from the shelf. She flipped it over in her hands a few times, weighed down by 588 pages of _American Gods._ She skimmed the summary with bored eyes, but figured she had nothing to lose.

She slumped back into the armchair wedged into the corner of the living room. Having already been there, in the house belonging to the nice couple she'd ended up with that month, for two weeks, she still couldn't find it in herself to call any space her own. She reckoned she never would. Even the spare bedroom upstairs, holding the small collection of her possessions, was - and never would be - her own.

Despite the intrusive thoughts, she sighed in content, throwing her legs over the edge of the chair to find a more comfortable position. She knew she still had a few hours to kill until anybody was due to be home. As she was nearly finished with the eleventh page, though, when the doorbell rang. She wanted to ignore it. But the second, third, fourth, and fifth time it interrupted her focus, she gave up.

"Me and you both, buddy," she muttered to the line she made a mental note of. _Shadow checked his conscious._ Thumb holding her place in the book, she pulled it close to her chest and rolled off the chair.

Whoever was at the door had not stopped banging on the bell, as if it was a game she was supposed to have picked up on. She ran over the mental list of any possible visitors; she was 99% positive that anyone it could be knew the adults were at work. That day shouldn't have been any different. She picked up her pace through the living room and into the hallway when the figure behind the glass of the front door resorted to banging their fist on it. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she told the door.

The man who stood behind it still had his hand raised in anticipation when she opened it. Nearly a foot taller than she was, she forced herself to look up at him; he dropped his hand for a moment, raising both of them to straighten the bow tie around his collar. He put on a smile and dug into his tweed jacket, flashing the blank card trapped in a leather sleeve at her once he found it.

"Hello there," he started. "Just here to do a bit of inspecting."

"They aren't home," she replied. Almost mechanically, to her surprise. "Jason and Rebecca, I mean."

"Oh, that's quite alright. Grown-ups are rather boring nowadays, aren't they?" He phrased the question like a statement, but still raised his voice at the end of it. Replacing the card in his jacket, he held out his free hand. "I'm the Doctor, by the way."

Holding onto the edge of the door frame with one hand, hanging off it in an attempt to lean across the doorway, she raised her eyebrows. "Doctor…?" she prompted.

"Just the Doctor," he insisted. He noticed the book in her hand and tapped the cover. "That's a good one. It's one of the most accurate portrayals of everyone upstairs."

She blinked. "You mean - the gods? Plural?"

"Of course. But, the last time I met one - _yikes_." He clapped his hands together. "Right, speaking of upstairs, there's - something I've come to inspect. May I come in?"

He was a man in the medical profession; how much trouble could she get into by letting him inside the house that wasn't hers? She stepped aside and granted him passage. The Doctor smiled pleasantly at her and stepped through the hallway. He stopped in the middle of the living room. "Nice little setup," he commented. "I never caught your name."

"It's Annabelle," she answered. She pointed him in the direction of the stairs; she picked up on the way he seemed to get more and more _fidgety_ by the second. Whatever he had to 'inspect' must've been quite the deal. "Upstairs is that way, knock yourself out. But try not to break anything."

The Doctor gave her a mock salute and went on his way. Annabelle shook her head at him, but settled back into the armchair. Ignoring the footsteps above her head, she made it another twenty pages into her book until she heard a dull _thump_ , followed closely by the sound of glass shattering. Although she jumped, she didn't up the stairs immediately. She wanted to decide on what arrangement of words she would use to chastise the Doctor for breaking the one rule - an easy rule, at that - she had given him.

She eventually found him in the middle of the spare room, the one that showed it was hers by her own things scattered about it. She had no idea what to make of the look on his face, a jumbled mess of shock, horror, and anger all wrapped up into one. At his feet laid a broken picture frame; he was lucky Annabelle cared more about the photo housed in it than the frame itself. "You've gotten glass all over my room," she told the Doctor.

Staring at the floor, he pointed at the mess as if he'd just noticed it. Then, he pointed at Annabelle, mouth opening and closing as he tried to make words. While his brain worked, he pointed back and forth a three more times until they came. "That's - that's you, isn't it?"

Annabelle nodded. Even if the photo was eight years old, she still looked like her five-year-old self. The same brown hair that couldn't choose between curly or straight; the same grey-green eyes that, now that she looked closer at him, matched the Doctor's. She shrugged internally at the revelation.

The Doctor mimicked her nodding. He bent down to snatch the photo from the wreckage, staring at it for a few moments before speaking again. "And that's you, with…?"

"A family friend," Annabelle finished. "Friend of my parents. Auntie River."

"Friend of your… parents," the Doctor repeated, half-muttered to himself. He snapped his fingers. "Your parents. You gave me your first name, but not your last. What's your whole name? It won't match the name on the letterbox, will it."

"I'm only here temporarily," she said. "It's Annabelle Pond. What's it got to do with anything?"

He laughed, giddy like a little kid. "Annabelle Pond! It's like a name from a fairytale." He stopped laughing abruptly, the smile falling from his face. "Oh. _Oh._ That means... _oh!_ Pond, Pond, _Pond_." He dug into another pocket, revealing a metal rod. Its end glowed green and buzzed when he pressed a button on the side.

Annabelle pushed it away as soon as the Doctor started to wave it around her. "You didn't answer my question," she reminded him. _And I'm starting to regret letting a mad man in,_ she thought.

"Oh, it's got to do with everything." The Doctor laughed once more, spinning an entire three-sixty on his heel. "Absolutely everything. Would you like to come see something wonderful?"

"...Maybe if you hadn't - _probed_ me first - "

"It isn't a probe! It's a sonic screwdriver!"

"That sounds made up."

"It really isn't. Trust me."

Annabelle shot him a skeptical look. "How can I trust you? You waltz in here, acting like you own the place, get spooked by a picture - and, quite frankly, it's easy for you to be lying."

"That _is_ a fair argument." The Doctor considered it, tapping his chin with the sonic screwdriver. "If it's any consolation, I could tell you what I came to inspect."

"Go on."

"There's a condition."

"Okay, shoot."

"You don't me for this later."

"Hate you? I don't even know - _HEY!_ " The Doctor had darted straight for her, and in no time she was slung over his shoulder. Annabelle pounded on his back with blows that went unnoticed. The Doctor soldiered on, straight out of the door of the house that Annabelle didn't belong in, and down the street. She hit him one more time before realizing that everything around them was quiet. No people milled around as they normally did; no cars were speeding to and fro on the road. _No witnesses to my kidnapping,_ Annabelle added. Out loud, she murmured, "Just my luck."

She glanced down and watched the concrete below change suddenly into a black floor. She heard a door shut and a lock turn and was placed back on her feet. "Don't try running off," the Doctor advised her.

"Is that supposed to be threatening?" she bit back. Busy dusting herself off, she hadn't noticed her new surroundings just yet.

They were standing next to a stairway up a glass floor, held together in panels by different metal fittings. The ground further below resembled coral, different holes that were full of darkness speckled around; a swing bound with different bits of rubber and tubing and leather hung from the glass platform. More steps led down to the under level visible through the glass; different staircases led to other areas that branched off from the room. In the middle of it all sat a glass tube that extended from floor to ceiling, encasing another blob of green glass. The centerpiece was surrounded in different panels, each one holding more buttons and levers than the last. A yellow pilot seat was bolted to the ground in front of the railings on the other side of the console.

" _Woah_." The Doctor had already taken his place on the glass platform, leaning against a panel of the console. "What is - _where_ are we?"

"She's called the TARDIS," the Doctor said casually. He spoke like he'd rehearsed the words hundreds of times before. "It stands for 'Time and Relative Dimensions in Space.' She's a time machine, and she's mine - well, maybe I'm more hers than she is mine."

Annabelle walked cautiously around the console, resisting the urge to press any and all buttons she came across when she ran her fingers over them. Only when she began to wonder what each of the multiple levers did, did she actually hear the Doctor's words. "Wait - _time machine_? That can't be possible."

"It is," he asserted. "I'm from a place where it's the norm. Time traveling - it explains itself, I suppose."

He crossed the platform, stopping once his contorted image was visible to Annabelle through the middle of the console. He jumped, remembering just _why_ he'd dragged her onto his time machine. "I'll be right back!" he called, flinging himself up a set of stairs. "Just - go ahead and explore - but don't touch _any_ buttons _or_ levers! There's an unlabeled self-destruct gear that's the stupidest idea I ever had!"

Annabelle listened to his fading footsteps, laughing quietly to herself. _A time machine._ It sounded wrong just thinking about it; time travel was the stuff you could only read about if you were lucky with the book you chose. Something only limited to whatever a mind could think up; something she'd wished for since long before she could remember, and there she was.

In a time machine. Unsupervised. Left alone to explore the depths of what looked like an ship.


	2. Chapter 2

Annabelle circled the console a few times more, contemplating her options. She could have tested the Doctor's theory and try to escape; she could have stayed put; or, she could have snuck deeper the TARDIS.

The decision was easy. She cautiously made her way up the set of stairs, finding herself at the beginning of an endless hallway. It was empty from her perspective, but once she figured out that nothing was going to jump out of the dark and attack her, she found each wall lined with door after door. Some were like normal doors, sounding wooden when she knocked on them; others were devoid of any knobs or handles completely, only to be opened by pressing the buttons next to them.

Idly, she held a hand out to the wall, fingers just barely grazing it. Reminding herself that she had quite literally just been _kidnapped_ by a man she'd met no more than twenty minutes ago, she repeated the Doctor's words in her head. "At least he seemed sure of himself," she muttered. Thinking aloud made the hallway seem less empty. "But if time travel is normal where he comes from…"

Annabelle stopped short. She had finally reached a break in the wall, a clearing opening up into a room. She knew her situation had graduated from _kidnapping_ to _abduction_ once she stepped inside.

The ceiling was easily 25 feet high. Hundreds upon hundreds of bookshelves lined the walls and crowded around the room, each spaced away about five feet from another. Some of the shelves were too packed, so someone had taken the liberty of making small - and a few large - stacks of books, new and old, thin and thick, surrounding them around the existing shelves. When she moved further into the library, she found a sitting area populated with overstuffed armchairs and couches, littered with books that had never made it back to their proper places. In the center of the organized chaos sat a long and low table; sitting open on it was a magazine, gently tattered, with a picture that caught Annabelle's eye instantly.

It showed a 1960s-era police box on the surface of Neptune.

" _Annnnnd he's an alien_ ," Annabelle breathed.

She couldn't tell if it was with perfect or horrible timing that the Doctor chose that moment to enter the library. Turning on him quickly, she fired off, "You can't be human."

He grinned at her. "I've never had someone on board figure that part out that quickly! But, you're not just _someone_." In the Doctor's hands was a stethoscope that Annabelle hadn't noticed until he held it out to her. "Take it, it won't bite - it's probably more human than I am."

Annabelle hesitated, but did as she was told. "What am I supposed to do with it?"

"Put it on and I'll do the rest." Once she had, the Doctor took the pad of the stethoscope and tapped it gently to prove it worked. Just as carefully, he placed the pad over his chest.

"Okay, you have a heartbeat, what does - " Annabelle cut herself off. The Doctor had moved the pad to the right. She ripped the stethoscope away from her head. "There's _two_. Two _hearts_."

"Trademark of my kind," the Doctor explained. "That and terrible uniforms. And, you know, the time travel."

"So you _are_ an alien."

"Just about. So are you."

Annabelle almost laughed directly in his face. "Right. I'm an alien as sure as you've met a god before."

"Go ahead, listen for yourself," the Doctor insisted. Adamant, Annabelle placed the pad on her own chest and listened.

And there was no denying the steady _thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum_. Four beats in a row. Two hearts, too.

She threw the medical instrument away, onto one of the armchairs. "That's _impossible._ "

"I can tell you from experience that _nothing_ is impossible." The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver from his pocket, tossing it into the air and catching it again. "I scanned you at your house - "

"It's not my house - "

" - I still scanned you there. Because the TARDIS had picked up your signal. They both showed two hearts."

"There is _no way_ this is happening. _You_ can't be happening! You're - you're not real! You're a story!" Annabelle had started pacing, but stopped to point at the Doctor.

He frowned at her. "I'm not a story. I'm real."

"But you _are_. All those bedtime stories - the angel at the bottom of the spaceship, the hijacking of Apollo 11, the reboot of the universe - you're in them, every single one." Annabelle snatched the magazine from the table behind her. "So is the blue box. Just… stories."

"And who told you all those stories? River, wasn't it?"

"How do y - you know her, don't you?"

"You could say that. We have quite the history. Let me show you something." Without checking to see if she was following, the Doctor led the way out of the library and back to the console room. Annabelle's head spun; she knew the hallway she had ventured down had not been just a few paces' length a minute ago. He snapped his fingers; the TARDIS's doors flew open, revealing the outside world. "Go ahead, take a look."

So Annabelle did. She stuck her head out of the TARDIS and knew it was the same police box that had been to Neptune. It was the same police box that was bigger on the inside; it was the same police box that had carried the Doctor through the stories that had filled her head when she was small. She didn't know when she had stopped believing in it, but any doubts she couldn't think of were wiped away.

"Okay, you have the box to show off, but what else?" Annabelle challenged. "Prove to me that this is all real."

The Doctor was stood at a monitor, but pushed it in her direction. She caught it with both hands. Images flew past her eyes: ones of the Doctor with a red-haired woman, ones of the red-haired woman next to a sandy-haired man almost as lanky as the Doctor, ones of all three of them - ones that featured River. The ones in black and white peaked her interest the most, all slightly blurry, as if the people in them had been caught up by mistake in the background and were speedily making an escape; they were suspended in time.

The Doctor slipped into place next to Annabelle. He turned a dial on the monitor, stopping the slideshow. "Is that believable enough for you?" he asked, not unkindly, but not loudly, either.

She swallowed. "Yes. You're real."

"I could have told you that," he said with a smile. "Don't get too comfortable yet - there's one more thing you should see." He turned the dial once more, displaying a new image composed of three rows of thin lines, with any matching patterns highlighted.

Annabelle didn't need to ask what she was seeing. "Those are DNA profiles."

The Doctor nodded in confirmation. "Mine, yours, River's." He pointed to each row, then back to Annabelle's. "You match both of ours. I'm about 99.9% sure that _you're_ ours."


	3. Chapter 3

"That's insane. _You're_ insane."

"I've heard that plenty of times before," the Doctor admitted. He gestured between himself and Annabelle. "Are you seeing the resemblance? Because I'm seeing the resemblance here."

Annabelle stole another, closer look at him. Anybody could have had the same hair at hers, but she'd locked eyes with him again, staring into the same shade of green. There was something else there, and it took Annabelle a few moments to realize it was _age._ The Doctor's eyes were clouded over with years that didn't belong to him, eyes that had seen wonders that could only be understood from first-hand experience, eyes that held secrets that she felt she had no business knowing.

They looked just like River's every time she had told Annabelle another story.

She turned her attention back to the monitor in front of her. Science couldn't lie - it was right in front of her, plain and simple. "So… you're implying that…"

"Well, yes," the Doctor finished.

"She told me my parents were _dead_ ," Annabelle insisted. She shook her head, in a vain attempt to clear away the frustration building up in her chest. "Gone. Erased from existence. Car accident for mum; disappearance of my dad. Said he'd gone off traveling, and never returned. Do you just expect everything to be okay when you barge in claiming to know for a fact that _you are my father_ and _took my mother on adventures throughout the whole of time and space?!"_

"Well, when you say it like that…" The Doctor frowned, and muttered to himself, "It wouldn't be the first time I was surprised with a daughter." He saw the look on her face and his expression changed to one that was completely apologetic. "It's all a lot to take in, I know."

"They were all lies, then? Just lies filling my head to accomplish _what_ , exactly?" The volume of Annabelle's voice had dropped to something that barely classified as a whisper.

"To stop anything bad from happening," the Doctor decided. Despite herself, Annabelle forced out half a laugh, no more than a puff of air blown out of her nose and a smile.

"But how bad could an alien in a _bow tie_ of all things, flying around in a blue box, be?"

"You'd be surprised, Annabelle Pond." Now the Doctor said her name as if _she_ was the unbelievable one. "Beastly enemies galore; run-ins with a few bad planets here and there; and _heaps_ of running. The bow tie and the box are just bonuses."

She only managed to smile wider at him, hanging off the monitor in consideration. "Show me more, then. Make me one-hundred-percent sure that all those stories are true."

"That's _easy_ ," the Doctor assured her, flipping a switch as he ambled around the console. He pressed a button, flicked a row of switches, then paused over a lever that swung in an arc. "You might want to hold onto something."

Annabelle clung to the rail that surrounded the console, just as the TARDIS began to shake and jolt. She could hear the Doctor laughing over the rattling noise, dancing in circles around his controls.

"Are you flying her, or is your bow tie tied too tightly?!" she yelled, only to get the Doctor's maniac laughter in reply. The TARDIS jerked suddenly to one side, making her lose her grip on the railing and land on the floor next to it.

The Doctor made his way over to her, offering a hand to pull her back upright. Once they were both sure that she hadn't suffered any major injury, he nodded at the doors. "Go ahead, I'll let you do the honors."

Slowly, she approached the doors, mind racing with images of what could be waiting on the other side. A new time; a new planet; a new race? She thought she had been doing a good job of hiding her excitement until she tugged on the door's handle and let out a gasp at what lay before her.

She forgot about everything she had speculated about in the past few seconds, taking in the sight of pure _space_. Asteroids dotted the void outside of the perfect swirl of the blue, pink, and purple gaseous clouds. Some of the stars that had blinked into existence - how old were they? how far into the future were they? light years, or millenia into the past? - looked close enough to touch.

"Now, that's just not fair," Annabelle murmured.

"The good old universe, huh?" the Doctor said, coming up next to Annabelle. "Never ceases to amaze me. Always changing, always building and taking apart and _re_ building, always growing and evolving."

Annabelle peeked up at him; he was completely enthralled by whatever part of the galaxy he had piloted them straight into. She could just see the view reflected in his eyes. "I believe you," she told him quietly.

Remembering that she was by his side, he glanced down, smiling in a way that she couldn't decipher. "Even the whole parent thing?" She nodded. "Then I guess it's you and me, Annabelle, up against the universe."

They fell into a comfortable silence that Annabelle felt bad about breaking. "It's impressive." She could have stayed for days on end, just watching the subtle movements of the galaxy, but, out of nowhere, the Doctor didn't seem to want to reside there anymore. He gently pulled her back into the TARDIS and shut the door in one fluid motion, trotting back towards the console.

"Impressive yes, but I can do even better. Let's see - somewhere amazing, somewhere with adventure... " He punctuated his words with more toggling of switches and turnings of dials. Annabelle followed closely behind, preparing herself for another bumpy ride when the Doctor finally stopped in front of what she'd deemed the 'go' lever.

"How about Floranill Nine? Nice little planet, it's got some catacombs that have yet to be discovered. What do you say, Pond?"

The surface of Floranill Nine looked rather ordinary, save a few strangely coloured plants and insects.

"Didn't you mention catacombs?" Annabelle asked, inspecting a patch of pinkish-purplish grass. She poked it with a finger, provoking a miniscule cloud of dust of the same color to raise into the air.

"Don't doubt me just yet - I think… they're in that cave over there," the Doctor pointed towards the area with his sonic screwdriver. " _Ooh_ , and there's the fire falls to see too!" She watched him bounce on his heels, feeling a rush of excitement go through her.

"I didn't know undiscovered catacombs came with torches in them." She stared into the cave mouth, lit with orange flames placed periodically on the walls.

"Guess they've been discovered. Late again." The Doctor continued into the cave, scanning around with the sonic. "Wouldn't hurt to have a peek around, anyway."

Tentatively, she fell into step just behind the Doctor, unable to ignore the strange feeling she had about the winding cave path. At the same time, though, she didn't want to be left alone with the strange cloud-plants.

"Back in the TARDIS," Annabelle started, flinching slightly at the echo of her own voice, "you said 'your kind.' Does that mean there's more people like you… or is it _us,_ now?"

The Doctor stopped to touch a carving in the stone wall. He frowned at it, before turning to her. She could see his eyes clouding over, again, this time with a grief and anger she didn't mean to bring up.

"No… the Time Lords, they're all gone. But there's me, and now you, too." He turned back towards the extending path, walking a little ways down. "Sometimes, alone isn't so bad…"

Annabelle scrutinized the carving herself as she passed it. Dug into the wall were three finger-like shapes, forming a rough hand. She matched her own hand into it, fitting her thumb, index and middle fingers, and ring and pinkie fingers into the spaces.

" _Intruders! Prepare to be taken prisoner!_ "

"What're you on about now - " She abandoned the carving, turned to the Doctor, stopping in her tracks. Two short guards in armour that covered them from head to toe each aimed guns towards the Doctor, who had his hands up in a surrendering gesture. He shot her a pleading _just do what they say_ look _._

"Silence, _prisoner!"_ At the voice, identical to that of whichever guard had spoken first, behind her, she held her hands up.

A fourth guard emerged from deeper inside the cave, without his own gun. Annabelle was pushed next to the Doctor; she caught him roll his eyes, warding off any fear she could have had. The one who seemed to be their leader stepped before them, lifting his helmet off of his head.

" _What_ is _that?"_ Annabelle whispered to the Doctor, gawking in bewilderment at what was only describable as a potato hybrid with legs. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see a gun on one of the masked guards. She guessed it was a laser gun, large, bulky, and intimidating.

"You are now the prisoners of Sontaran Fleet Number 342," the leader spoke sharply. Annabelle mouthed the name, purely alien, at the Doctor. He gave a small nod that went unnoticed by the Sontaran leader. "Lead them this way."

The Sontarans herded them deeper into the cave, farther down the path; farther away from the TARDIS. Annabelle wondered how many before had gotten lost on those very paths, exactly what would deem them as catacombs. As they descended, the torches on the walls grew closer together; the light grew brighter.

Soon, the path widened; it opened up into a large hollow shaft, filled with different pieces of technology and weapons that didn't fit in with the natural look of the cave walls and floor. Different Sontarans worked at different areas, but they all looked exactly like the leader.

"Clones," the Doctor said quietly, voice masked by the sounds all the machines were making. "This way, each one's the perfect soldier. Not one is stronger nor weaker than another."

"What shall we do with them, Commander?" the Sontaran directly behind Annabelle asked. His voice was the same as his fellow soldiers', too, confirming the clone explanation.

"Dungeons," the commander ordered, already starting across the room. "Keep them there until we figure out a use for them."

To the left of the cleared-out chamber was another path that forked off in three directions. Annabelle shuddered as she felt the barrel of the laser gun press into her back. "Forward!" the soldier barked out, shoving her and the Doctor along.

Luckily, he'd hidden his sonic away before the Sontarans had caught up to them. He kept watching the path, memorizing each turn they took. The path widened again, revealing two rows of jail cells on each wall. Fluorescent bulbs had been attached to the ceiling, dangling by metal chains. A seemingly empty cell was occupied by a single skeleton that looked ready to fall to pieces.

A guard walked ahead and pulled open the barred metal door of the next cell. He grunted at the Doctor as he and Annabelle were both shoved inside. He pressed his three-fingered hand into the wall next to the door; the bars of the cell began to glow blue around the edges.

"Hypershock," the Sontaran sneered at her, noticing that she was about to grip the bars with her hands still raised. She retracted immediately.

"Really _impressive,_ this is," Annabelle said to the Doctor. She slumped onto the ground next to him, pulling her knees to her chest and resting her chin on top. "Getting us captured in under ten minutes of being on a planet."

He glanced at the guard, rolled his eyes, and settled down next to Annabelle. "They're not very clever, Sontarans," he said, beginning to dig in his pockets. "They always use the same tactics: get on a planet, search for life, claim it prisoner if it's there, then try to conquer the whole place. Only once did they do differently - that time, they lured in some genius kid to work on their side. What an absolute hassle _that_ was. They tried to poison the planet with _cars,_ of all things. Almost lost two people that day, too."

Annabelle sighed, leaning against the cave wall. The Doctor had emptied his jacket out in a matter of seconds. A few screws, some wrappers, batteries, a key ("Oh, I told Rory to keep that! They know I can just sonic the front door…"), and a spare bow tie littered the floor.

"What kind of a plan is this?" Annabelle asked. He pointed at the back of the Sontaran's head.

"If I can find something heavy enough," he whispered, "I can knock him out. The Sontarans have only one weak spot - kind of like an Achilles Heel, but on the back of their necks."

He pointed towards a small, circular opening in the back of their guard's suit of armour. He dug around once more in his pockets, only to pull out more wrappers and a few coins. The Doctor huffed out a breath, eyes downcast and scanning the floor. He shoved all that he'd found back into his pockets, leaving the wrappers on the ground.

His eyes scanned around again, stopping at Annabelle's. His face lit up.

"Give me your shoe!" he whisper-yelled. She looked at him like he had grown a fifth limb.

"Why can't you use yours?!" she shot back.

"Because they take forever to untie! Do you want to get out of here or not?"

Annabelle glared at him, taking her time just to spite him. Eagerly, he took her shoe in his hands, but slowly stood up. He took aim in between the bars, making a clear shot for the Sontaran's weak spot. She winced when he threw it, glaring harder when she saw that the shoe had flown straight past the guard and through the bars of the cell opposite theirs. The Doctor motioned for the other shoe without looking at her. This time, he stood closer to the glowing bars.

"Oomph!" The Sontaran went down like he had been hit upside the head with a cricket bat. The bars ceased to glow as soon as the guard hit the ground.

"It's a mental link," the Doctor explained. "That's sort of clever, I'll give them that."

He pulled out his sonic and aimed it at the locks on the door of the cell, the _clank!_ of the lock sounding in time with the buzz. The Doctor pushed the door, bending down to retrieve Annabelle's closest shoe. While trying to shove it on as quickly as she could, voices sounded from the other end of the hallway.

"Did you hear that, Stox?"

"No."

"Well, I did! What if it's the prisoners?"

"I bet you it's nothing."

Heavy, boot-clad feet began to stomp in the distance.

" _Come on!"_ the Doctor hissed, dragging her down the other end of the hallway. She still hadn't collected the shoe from the other cell, but couldn't do much about it. The Doctor took a sharp left, throwing them into another, dimly-lit room. "Stocked, yes!" he whispered as as entered. She could see a few metal objects glinting under the dull light.

"Stocked with _what,_ exactly?" Annabelle whispered back, fusing her words with as much annoyance as possible - all at the loss of her shoe. The Doctor lifted one of the metal things into the air.

When it was closer to the light, she could make out the shape of the metal sheet - a surfboard. He handed it to her and reached for another.

"I wasn't really planning on this, but I think that this'll be the easiest way ou - "

He was cut off by voices shouting from not too far away. "They're out! Escaped! Escap _ees_! Get them back, get them back before they're gone!"

"This way!" The Doctor spoke at full volume now, not caring about the pursuing Sontarans. He grabbed Annabelle's hand and pulled her out of the room and down a hallway. As they ran, the walls of what used to be rock had been covered in metal plating. She ran into the Doctor's back when he stopped at a silver door, slamming his hand on the three-fingered scanner next to it.

"Okay, the boards will make a sort of connection when you step onto it - there's no way that you can fall off," he explained quickly. Annabelle had no time to ask why he was telling her that; the voices were catching up.

"Prisoners! Hold your ground, human _scum!"_ Sontarans were quickly catching up.

" _Ooh,_ you didn't," the Doctor muttered. He opened a second door, leading out onto a silver catwalk with a blast of heat.

Annabelle glanced over the edge, laughing nervously at the sight. Below was a river of flaming lava, sparks up tiny bursts of fire here and there. The Doctor turned back through the original door, only to have a band of Sontarans to enter through it, with their helmets back on and guns raised. She started towards the opposite door, retreating as another set of soldiers entered through it. She and the Doctor stood back to back now, each staring down the aliens.

"Last chance, fellas!" the Doctor shouted, holding the surfboard over his head.

"You are only a weak human! You are easily conquered!" one Sontaran growled, making the others chant " _Sontar-ha! Sontar-ha!"_

"Oi, that's _Time Lord_ to you!" A collective gasp transferred amongst the troops. Annabelle found herself grinning at the ones in front of her. "And I've already alerted the Judoon! If I were you, I'd take the quickest way outta here! _Now!"_

The Doctor nudged her before throwing his board over the platform. She mimicked him, watching as the boards sailed down almost right next to each other.

The Doctor grabbed my hand. Before she could protest, he shouted, " _GERONIMO!"_

Annabelle muffled a scream as he leapt off the platform. She heard a tiny, metallic-sounding _thump_ as she landed on the board; she felt an invisible lock fall over both feet, leaving them stuck to the surface.

The Sontarans shot from above, missing and shooting lasers into the molten lava. It splashed extremely close; Annabelle laughed out when a few drops slide down the air. _Forcefield._

The Doctor laughed next to her, slowing to a stop near the lava's edge. She aimed the board in the same direction, reaching for his hand as she jumped off of it. Their boards continue floating, right around a bend in the lava's flow.

"All right...I think the exit's this way." The Doctor had pulled out his sonic, aiming it down the walkway next to the lava.

"Are you actually sure this time? I think that was enough Sontarans to last a while," Annabelle joked, a few steps behind him.

"Quite sure, seeing as there's no more torches - so nobody's been down this far."

They walked silently for a few minutes, the only sound being the lava popping and boiling. "How come you got all jumpy at the name 'Pond'?" Annabelle asked suddenly; it felt like hours ago that he had interrogated her in the house she didn't belong in. He smiled and chuckled.

"Well, the Ponds are your…" He stopped mid-sentence, letting his hands fall to his sides. "Oh, how am I going to explain…" Annabelle raised her eyebrows. " _Grandparents,"_ he said after mumbling incoherently to himself for a few moments. "That's their relation to you, and _how am I going to explain this a child with River they're going to have a fit!"_

Annabelle didn't stop herself from giggling at him." _This isn't funny I'm only 1,109 I've already had three mothers on me in the past four hundred years I do not need a fourth!"_

"Then just wait to do it," she suggested between her laughter. "At least you've got all the time you need to figure it out."

"Right, avoidance… I'm good at that. Running's easy. Ah, finally!" They had reached a second opening in the cave that opened up into the field they had originally landed in. They slipped back into the TARDIS as if they'd never been there.

"I was thinking maybe we can go to Coventry next, eleven hundred's a pretty good century," the Doctor began to ramble, running around the console and flipping switches. The TARDIS made a whirring sound, causing the Doctor to stop mid-flip and look up at the ceiling. "Oh, but there's another thing I have to show you first."


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor twirled up a staircase, checking that Annabelle was behind him with every twist and turn. She followed him down the same hallway she had found the library in; she counted ten more doorways until he stopped next to the eleventh.

"I think the TARDIS likes you, Annabelle." He gestured at the door. "She has a place planned out for you already. Go ahead." Annabelle pressed down on the button on the wall, smiling as it slid open down the middle.

The farthest wall was overtaken by the bed, raised a level up from the rest of the room, and by empty bookshelves, lining every other available space. To its left, a desk was neatly tucked under the stairway that led to the balcony hanging over the bed. To its right, two wooden doors waited. Annabelle crossed the center of the room, over the deep purple circle of a rug, to discover a bathroom and a wardrobe that seemed bigger on the inside. She stepped back and caught a glimpse of a submarine's door, port window and all, at the edge of the balcony, cracked open to reveal another entrance into the library, and of the ceiling.

Through what looked like bumpy glass was the ever-so-slightly distorted image of the galaxy the Doctor had first shown her. Tiny specks of white highlighted the perfectly-muddled blues, pinks, purples, and greens; scattered planets in reds, oranges, and yellows accented the whole scene.

Eyes fixed upwards with the smile that hadn't left since she'd entered the room, Annabelle addressed the Doctor. "It's _perfect_."

"Good," the Doctor replied, sounding amused with himself. "That's better than good, that's _great_. Why don't you have more of a look around? There's a… _thing_ I've got to take care of."

"Sure," Annabelle muttered, still distracted. She couldn't look away from the entirely new set of stars, representing entirely foreign constellations, until she remembered she was still missing a shoe.

Venturing back towards the wardrobe, she pushed hangers aside, hoping for a shoe rack. Instead, she found the entrance to yet another room. "Okay, I'll give you that," she said quietly to the ship. " _That's_ pretty cool."

Floors upon floors of clothes, each connected by a ladder, hung waiting to be put on for jaunts to a party in the 1920s; an expedition in endless fields of snow in a tundra; a swing through a planet whose societal norm was primarily fancy dress, complete with masks mimicking unnameable species; or, in Annabelle's case, a simple day out. The section her room opened into was titled _A-S/13/T_ by a plaque on the wall just above where she found a copy of the shoes she had been wearing earlier that day.

 _Huh._ Earlier that day, she hadn't been a time-and-space traveler. _Or_ part alien.

Annabelle retraced her steps back into the room she could now call hers. Finding it looking more bare than it had before, she resorted to rifling through the desk. Inside, she turned up the lost objects she'd left in the house that wasn't hers: the picture the Doctor had dropped, now in a new frame; the dark - no, _TARDIS_ blue photo album; the small box of trinkets; the smaller tin of jewelry.

Satisfied that she knew the basics of her room, Annabelle started into the hallway. She could hear the Doctor talking to himself - or, into a phone, as she saw from above the console.

"...should be coming by any day now; the helmic regulator's been playing up, again. As soon as I get the temporal steering just right…" He flipped two switches in front of him, then slid his finger across three buttons. "There's some… news, too. Big news. You'll love it, I'm sure. I hope… Oh, dear!" The TARDIS lurched; Annabelle gripped the railing closest to her; the phone was knocked from the Doctor's hands, secured a moment later. "I appear to be colliding with - _ancient Greece?_ _Argh_!" Tangled in the phone's cord, the Doctor couldn't do much more than let the movements of his ship throw him from side to side of the console room. As suddenly as it had began, the movement stopped. "...and it's gone to dial tone." He unwinded himself and replaced the phone in its cradle, and retreated to a monitor.

"Ancient Greece is out there?" Annabelle pointed to the doors. The Doctor squinted at the monitor.

"It's not ancient Greece. It's a place called…" He tapped the screen, once gently, a second time more aggressively. " _Desolo_. Hm."

"It's not Floranill Nine, so it's not invaded, so that's good enough for me," Annabelle reasoned. After he met her side, they stepped out of the TARDIS together.

"It's Latin, _desolo._ For _abandon._ That explains the name," the Doctor muttered. They had landed in another field, but, that time, it was occupied by different structures. Each one was made of stone, just about reduced to rubble. What remained made the place look like the inside of a long-forgotten castle. Vines had grown up and around the ruins; local plants of neon hues spread across the ground.

Annabelle moved closer to inspect the carvings etched into a still-standing archway. "What year's this?"

"I'd say around five thousand-ish. That was when the human race began to travel outside their solar system start building their homes on new planets. Some of them were based off different time periods; this one's supposed to look Medieval-y." The Doctor passed through the archway, ready to explore whatever was beyond it.

"Kinda magical, isn't it?" Annabelle said quietly, following him into the next set of desolate structures. "It's every kid's dream to get a castle to themselves."

The Doctor chuckled. "Was that yours?" He stared up a pillar, tracing the new carvings and estimating its height.

"I wanted an adventure that nobody had ever gone on before." She smiled lightly, reminiscing how wistful her childhood had been.

"So did I," the Doctor replied, circling the pillar. "So I stole a time machine one day and left. Only returned now and then to check up on everyone… but the thrill - the thrill of discovery was something I had become addicted to, so I stopped going back altogether." He sighed like he was regretful of his actions, but the glint in his eyes gave him away.

"You just up and left one day?" Annabelle joined him by the pillar, peering through a large hole that could have been a window in another time.

"Everyone knew it would happen eventually. I always wanted to go, I just didn't agree with their ways." The Doctor had started to lean out of the hole, far enough that he could touch the ground. He picked out bits of grass from the dirt.

Even though he wasn't looking at her, Annabelle knew better than to ask what he meant by 'everyone'. The glint had gone and was replaced by remorse.

"Did you hear that?" He suddenly bolted upright, blades of grass still poking out from between his fingers. He started towards another hole, one whose square shape suggested it used to have a door attached. "Whispers," he hissed, reeling around to face her. "Do you know what whispers mean, Annabelle?"

"People?" she guessed with a shrug. "That Desolo isn't really deserted?"

"Exactly!" He turned his back to her to avoid tripping over pieces of a half-fallen wall. "You're more clever than you let on." Stepping around it, he turned to her again. "I say we find them. Because who would live in a half-standing castle?"

"Someone in hiding?" Annabelle guessed again, passing the Doctor through another open doorway. Nothing lay beyond it, except for a small cluster of tall pine trees. Annabelle went slowly towards them - they were the most Earth-like thing she'd seen yet.

As she got closer, she could see that the trees were placed in a perfect circle, each spaced exactly the same distance from another. On the opposite side of the circle, one tree was missing, creating an opening to a narrow stone pathway. It looked beaten down from hundreds of footsteps tramping onto it.

Annabelle looked over her shoulder at the Doctor. He was still scanning the carvings, looking flustered by their patterns. She stared down the path again, flanked by clusters of different trees and small flowers.

"Couldn't hurt to have a look…" she muttered, starting down the path whose greatest risk was leading into nowhere.

Alone walking, Annabelle had more time to put her thoughts together about the Doctor.

o0o0o0o

Could she even trust him?

She had grown averse from having great trust in people as she'd grown up. It became easy to hate the fact that she never knew who to call _mum and dad,_ or, in some cases, _when_ to. Being bounced around from couple to couple, house to house that she could never call her own, was never easy to get used to. And now, she was stuck with the Doctor - but was there such thing as a _good_ kind of stuck?

Her thoughts drifted towards River. The realization of the fact that her childhood was packed with lies felt like more weight pressing into the back of her mind. Sure, there were a few truths: the adventures, her father being a traveller. But those couple of truths didn't completely balance out all the lies. She wondered if the scale would ever tip… and if something would go wrong.

Annabelle shook the thought, focusing on kicking a pebble along the path. At first, gently, then with more force as her thoughts wandered. Maybe she was only second-guessing herself. Maybe everything was the way it was supposed to be in the universe now that the Doctor had stumbled upon her.

She kicked the pebble a final time, watching it tumble off of the ending of the path. Where the stone ended, another began, this time a dirt one. The second was shorter, almost like a driveway, leading to a small, barely-noticeable cottage.

For one thing, the house was half-embedded into a hill that sat behind it. The front wall, made up of the same stone as that of the first path, was concealed by a layer of vines that had grown over it; small patches of stone stuck out here and there. A wooden door sat right in the middle of the wall, sandwiched between two windows masked by dust and dirt.

Annabelle carefully approached the cottage, even though looked as if no one had entered for decades upon decades. The door's red coat of paint was miserably chipped, covered by small scratches towards the bottom. Before she could try to knock, she let out a gasp.

A cluster of voices were shouting in her head, all jumbled together and all at once.

 _Non-Earther! Non-Earther!_

 _Open it, open it!_

Without a word out of Annabelle, the door creaked open slowly by itself. She pushed it forward, slowly entering the room. Despite the state of its exterior, the inside of the cottage was well-furnished, complete with hardwood floors, mismatched couches and chairs. Despite the muffled tone of the yelling voices, the interior was devoid of any people.

Annabelle went to call out, just to hear her own voice. Instead, as if on instinct, she called out mentally.

 _Anybody home?_

The tangle of shouts replied on cue.

 _Enter! Enter!_ She took a single step over the threshold. _Down, down…_

She heard a voice softer than the rest, just under the cacophony. _Deeper down the rabbit hole, eh?_

Annabelle looked back outside; nobody was coming up the path. Her mouth twitched into a frown, but she walked into the middle of the room anyway. On the opposite wall, a hallway lined with more stone stretched; the voices grew in volume as she got closer to it.

With the floor illuminated by green-glowing bulbs pressed into the stone, Annabelle wearily made her way through the back of the house. The voices had decided to go quiet for the time being, but she could still feel their presence in her mind. The sound of her shoes dragging against the floor was the only thing to break the unsettling silence.

The wall to the right was completely smooth; in the left, a small nick in the rock caught her attention. She reached out a hand to touch it, only to jump back when a voice sounded from the other side of the wall. " _Infero."_

Like any scene from a movie, a doorway appeared from out of nowhere in the wall. Annabelle quickly stepped through, watching as the rock closed back up behind her. The room held a single wooden table, two chairs neatly positioned around it. The occupant of the farthest of the chairs looked like a vague impression of a human.

Jet black hair hung around the darkly tanned face of it; almond-shaped eyes sat normally just above its nose. Its eyes were missing pupils; a lavender blob pinpricked with a black dot sat in their centers. Its lips were thin; they a darker purple than its eyes. It lifted a single hand above the table, the gesture shifting its black robe.

"So you've discovered our little place," it said, now pointing towards the chair opposite from it. Annabelle gently sat down, holding her breath and nodding.

"Is that good or bad?" she questioned, quietly, not wanting to disrupt the silence any more than she needed to.

"Good, in your case. Your mind is stronger than most others." She figured that had something to do with the whole being-part-alien thing. "Others would never take notice of a blemish in a wall; they'd expect nothing of it. Just a mistake, meant to be nothing." It leaned back in its chair, folding its hands on the tabletop, an impressed look on its face. "You're curious."

"You could say that," she replied, beginning to trace circles on the table. Without warning, another one of the humanoids emerged from another disappearing doorway.

"Sullen," it hissed, dark grey robe flowing beneath him. "We've located the other."

"Lead him here," Sullen commanded with a wave of his hand.

"Do you mean - " Annabelle attempted to ask, being cut off by the unnamed being in the grey robe.

"The Doctor should arrive in a short while." With that, it turned away and out the doorway he had entered from.

After a few quiet seconds, she cleared her throat. "So, Sullen? That's… different."

Sullen chuckled softly. "Small talk is unnecessary. I know you're expecting answers." He leaned forward in his chair, like he was ready to share a secret. "He's quite trustable, you know."

"Who's - you...how'd you…?" Annabelle stumbled, all too soon putting the pieces together.

"Bit of a gift." Sullen smiled. "All of us here, we've all got some physic ability - only thanks to our human ancestors who were too impatient for evolution. They sped up the process." He leaned back against the chair. "But the Doctor is trustable. He's the saver of countless worlds; not once has he expected a thanks from any citizen of any civilization. He looks for trouble, just so he can help."

She let Sullen's words sink in, contemplating a response. Before she could arrange a sentence, the other doorway opened again. The Doctor all but ran through, straight towards her.

"You're alright!" he said, pulling Annabelle into his arms and knocking the chair out from under her. "You're _so_ lucky the Eltrors here weren't looking for a hostage." He set her down, pulled out his sonic and went to scanning. He got one in before she pushed his arm away.

"I'm fine, Dad."

Annabelle took a sharp intake of breath when the word slipped. How long had it been since she'd said it? Six, seven years? Too bad the streak had ended now.

The Doctor pocketed his sonic, beaming towards he. He smiled for a few moments more before he spoke again. "Just don't run off like that, okay? Something could've happened and I wouldn't have known or you could've gotten lost or…" He trailed off, noticing Sullen watching him with a smirk.

He hugged Annabelle once more. "I just don't want you lost." She nodded against his chest, the action being the only thing she was able to do with his arms wrapped around her.

The Doctor turned to Sullen. "Well, we'd best be off now. Sorry for any trouble—"

"Actually, Doctor," Sullen stood, picked up the chair from the ground and gestured towards it. "I'd like to have a quick word with you. Alone, if you don't mind."

The Doctor cast a worried glance towards Annabelle. Noticing, Sullen spoke up again. "Outside is completely safe. I can have one of our best guards on the watch, if that'll settle your nerves." He shouted in the direction where one of the doorways had been. "Kinder! Would you be as so kind to escort Miss Pond outside, please?"

Who they assumed was Kinder entered the room, dressed in a dark yellow robe. He nodded once at Sullen, then at Annabelle, and then at the doorway.

"Five minutes tops," the Doctor told her as she stepped away from him. Once outside of the single room, she could feel a vacancy in the back of her mind; it had to have meant that the voices were quiet in her head for good.

"Please, sit," Sullen insisted, waving a hand at the empty chair. The Doctor gently sank into it, propping his elbows up on the table and crossing his legs under it.

Once he was seated, he began to interrogate Sullen. "So, what's the catch, then? Might as well just get right to it - places to go, people to see, you know how it works."

"No catch, Doctor." Sullen shook his head. "Simply just a warning." His answer caught the Doctor off guard. Ignoring the reaction, he continued on. "It may not be believable, but there are so many things unknown to you about your daughter."

"You're kidding." The Doctor leaned back in the chair, hooking his fingers together and resisting the urge to kick his feet up. "She's the child of River Song, there's bound to be _plenty_ unknown about her."

The look on Sullen's face lived up to his name. He shook his head. "Check her - where's she's from and where she's been. It may be to your advantage." He let out a small sigh, as if he wasn't sure what he would say next. "Your child... is wanted."

" _Wanted?"_ The Doctor scoffed. "By who?"

"Your enemies, Doctor." He leaned forward a bit. "Most of the beings turned against you are convinced she can be a weapon. Used against you, and their own enemies."

"Well, that sure narrows it down," the Doctor mumble under his breath. Of course, any creature he could think of off the top of his head would want a Gallifreyan on their side. The perfect weapon. "How do you know, Sullen? How are you so sure?"

Sullen's mouth fell into a straight line. "I will not reveal any more of your future, Doctor. All I _will_ say is that you need to protect your daughter."

The Doctor nodded once, then stood. Without another word, he walked out of the already-opened doorway, back down the hall and through the door. The sky above was noticeably darker than it was when he'd entered into the cottage.

He looked around for Kinder and Annabelle, not seeing either immediately. Just before he was about to call out, the pair appeared from the other side of the house. "Back door," Annabelle explained once she was close enough.

Kinder tilted his head in her direction; the Doctor repled with another, more solemn nod. Without so much as a goodbye, he led the way towards the TARDIS, a comfortable silence covering the pair.

 _Enemies_. The word repeated itself in his head, over and over. He had too many of them to count. Any one of them would jump at the chance to have a jab at the Doctor, the one to defeats them time and time again. Not one of them would care about the risks. None of them would think twice about it. It isn't hard for him to imagine what could possibly happen if any enemy he had ever encountered got to Annabelle. They could just as easily brainwash her as they'd once done to River.

The Doctor shoved aside all the flashes of imaginary situations aside long enough to unlock the TARDIS doors. He put on a smile despite himself and ran up to the console, flipping levers and pressing buttons as he went. Annabelle followed, opting to sit down in the pilot seat behind him.

"How about I set the TARDIS to random? See where we end up?" he asked, a hand hovering just over the flight lever.

"How about some sleep first?" Annabelle countered through a yawn, already back up and headed towards the stairs.

"Alright, alright, that's fair, it's been quite the day," the Doctor said, not at all hiding his disappointment. But, a moment later, he perked up, realizing that Annabelle would be distracted long enough for him to dig around. "Goodnight!"

She pulled a half smile and gave him a wave. "Goodnight, Dad."

He smiled wide at the word. Swinging back to the controls, he quickly turned on the blue switches - the stabilizers he barely knew he had - to make the flight into space as smooth as possible.

Once he heard Annabelle's door slide shut, he aimed his sonic at the monitor before him, exposing it to the information he'd gathered from the single scan he had gotten of Annabelle in the cottage. A split second of buffering later, the screen flashed on, showing different bits and pieces of information. The Doctor caught as much basic information as he could.

Name: Annabelle Charlotte-Rose Pond

 _Parents: Melody Pond (River Song); The Doctor_

 _Species: Time Lord_

 _Origin: Earth_

He twisted the knob under the screen, watching the screen flick through pictures of Annabelle at various ages. He turned it further, forcing the basic info screen to reappear, with a change to the original.

 _Age: 13 (Earth years)_

 _So young,_ he thought. _Too vulnerable._

He selected a different knob, producing a list on the screen. It held at least two hundred different names on it, categorized by date of death. Horrified, the Doctor scrolled to the top of the list, gaping at its title.

Foster Parents to: Pond, Annabelle

He rubbed his hand across his face, scanning the list as quickly as he dared. He recognized none of the names; some of the couples' cause of deaths were mundane, the most common being car crashes, a few to sudden illness; the majority were paired with an " _unknown."_

It didn't take the Doctor much to figure that _unknown_ was synonymous with _enemies._

Shaken, he continued through the list with a sigh of dismay. One of couples' demises stopped him in his tracks. The _unknown_ had been replaced with _Battle of Canary Wharf._ It made the Doctor start to wring his hands. Having had enough, he pushed the monitor away. He hadn't even made it halfway through the list, and he already knew how horribly scattered his daughter's past was.

"You need to protect her," the Doctor whispered Sullen's words to the empty console room.


End file.
